


Trade in All Our Silver Bullets

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: Jupeter Vampire AU [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Canon Non-Binary Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Getting Together, Gothic Horror AU, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Slow Burn, Vampire Hunter Juno Steel, Vampire Hunter Valencia, Vampire Peter Nureyev, i did genuine research and yes silver bullets are antivampire things sometimes, juno's embarrassing thing for nureyev's teeth, not horrible because im a coward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: The only thing between Juno Steel’s head and the growling, pacing storm above was the dingy roof of an even dingier tavern. It had taken him nearly half an hour just to adjust his eyes, for the dreary corner in which he sat was lit only by a dying candle stub, holding on for dear life against the wind from the leaky windows.If Juno had his choice, he would have been anywhere else. However, the hooded figure in the corner had caught his eye and snared his curiosity.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jupeter Vampire AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981267
Comments: 197
Kudos: 174





	1. The Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!! The horror tag is a bit gratuitous, but the first two chapters emulate the style a bit, just a heads up
> 
> Content warnings for pursuit, alcohol mention, blood, injury, mentioned catcalling, pursuit, getting lost, perilous weather events, death mention, murder mention, food/drink mention

The only thing between Juno Steel’s head and the growling, pacing storm above was the dingy roof of an even dingier tavern. It had taken him nearly half an hour just to adjust his eyes, for the dreary corner in which he sat was lit only by a dying candle stub, holding on for dear life against the wind from the leaky windows.

If Juno had his choice, he would have been anywhere else. However, the hooded figure in the corner had caught his eye and snared his curiosity.

Juno couldn’t make out an inch of skin on the figure, as even his slender, clever hands hid themselves behind white gloves of an expensive looking fabric. One hand drummed an even pattern on the table, the sound dampened by the howling wind and rattling windows. The other hand held a vice grip around his glass. 

The figure paused in his impatient twitching to take a long, slow drink from what looked to be a glass of wine. When a drop slid down and onto the table, Juno suspected it was a little too red and a little too viscous to be alcohol. Even with the surrounding haze of pipesmoke and the choking ash of the sputtering hearthfire nearby, Juno would’ve been a fool not to recognize the stench of blood. 

Before anyone else could notice the stranger’s choice of drink, one of those gloved hands seized a handkerchief and wiped the drop away with all the speed of a striking snake. He then stuffed the cloth back into his coat with all the furtivity of Crown secrets passed along from spy to spy.

Juno’s hand went tight around the stake under his coat, only relaxing when the hood turned in his direction. He tried to look like just another patron crowded into that little tavern to look into the bottom of their glass and feel sick. From the ashen expression of the scarred, wavering reflection staring back from the bottom of his cup, Juno could only assume it was working. 

He looked up once more when the figure had turned his head away, his gloved hand still and suddenly tight around the edge of the table. His spine did not straighten so much as it unfurled, his eye pulled elsewhere and his body drawn taut as a bowstring at that fact. The stranger didn’t even seem to care as a drop of candle wax oozed its way onto his glove, the white pearl merely sliding between his fingers and getting flicked away like a bothersome insect. 

Juno followed the stranger’s unwavering gaze to the nearby window, out of which the distorted image of a ratlike man could be seen. He didn’t see anything of particular interest about the man. The man had just made a particularly lewd comment to a pair of people hurrying across the other side of the street, and looked as if he was preparing to make another one at the next unfortunate passerby. 

The figure, however, seemed to take great interest in this, discarding his glass and all but launching himself from his seat. With one hand on his stake and the other on his gun, Juno stood and followed, letting himself be no more than a shadow to the stranger. 

When the tavern coughed him up into the frigid sting of the stormy, October evening, Juno shuddered. He hugged the stone wall of the building for as long as he could, pretending to pull his coat tight around him to hide a quick glance at the stranger. However, it seemed the hooded figure had eyes only for the man standing on the corner, who seemed to be preparing a rude comment for him as well. 

Juno squinted against the sputtering wind and choking dark, but it seemed his eyes were not deceiving him when the stranger merely nodded his head towards a nearby alleyway and beckoned the man with a long, languid finger. Somewhere from the void beneath that hood, Juno could have sworn he heard a dangerous chuckle, low and dark and cruelly sweet.

The man followed the shadow, and with fatal curiosity prickling at the back of his head, Juno did the same. 

Juno remained a few paces behind, but found himself rendered frozen before he could even look into the alleyway to see what had happened. He didn’t need to guess. The scream was perfectly audible, even as it spiraled away into the cruel night wind. 

The man was still alive when he hit the ground, for he let out a groan of pain and clasped a hand to his bloodied neck, the two pinprick holes messy from where he had tried to pull himself away. 

The hooded figure righted himself and backed away, cautious not to step on the man and even more cautious not to allow any blood onto his clothing. He produced the same handkerchief as before to dab at a spot upon his face. 

Juno reached to draw his gun, filled to capacity with silver bullets, but found himself frozen when the stranger turned his empty face upon him. 

Juno couldn’t make out his features, but the blank void of the stranger’s hood seemed to hide something furious, smoldering, and perhaps a little coy just beyond the shield of shadow.

“Well,” the figure sighed, his voice as low and smooth and lovely as his laugh. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. You're the one sent to kill me, I assume?” 

Juno nodded, hand still tight around his gun. After seeing the quick work made of the catcaller, he doubted he wanted to be as close as the stake would require him to be. 

“One of two,” he confirmed. 

“A shame, really,” the monster confirmed. “Peter Nureyev, at your service, for however long that might last.”

“I knew that,” Juno snorted, though his hand twitched when Nureyev took a step forward.

“It’s only polite to introduce oneself to strangers, darling,” Nureyev grinned. “We wouldn’t want you killing the wrong vampire now, would we?” 

“I’m supposed to kill any of you,” Juno tried to return as evenly as he could manage. “Don’t get a big head about it.”

Nureyev chuckled, still creeping closer and closer. The length of his cloak trailed onto the ground when he didn’t brush it aside. Without the sight of his feet pacing forward, Juno felt as if he were being cornered by a spectre, rather than someone very real, very corporeal, and likely still hungry. 

“You wound me, darling,” Peter continued. Juno felt his stomach twist when he heard the smile in his voice. “Now, I would only like to be fair to you. I’ll give you a moment’s running start, and then why don’t we go about our business like civilized people?”

“What?” Juno sputtered. 

“Three,” Nureyev began, the hungry grin audible in his voice as his stride increased into half a jog. 

Juno didn’t have to be told twice to turn around and run. 

The wind clawed at him as Juno shoved his way through the foggy night air, though he couldn’t find it in him to hear any of its whistling. The only sound in the world seemed to be the pounding of his heart. It hammered in overtime, anticipating that it should be able to beat no longer all too soon. If he focused, he could almost hear the drumming of feet behind him, though he tried not to focus on that for long. 

Instead, he did everything he could to keep his footing while simultaneously getting lost. The fog was as thick as the roads were roughly hewn, and when the cobblestone path turned to dirt and the buildings turned into a thousand toothlike trees, Juno could only pray the trail led to shelter. He had seen a manor upon a hill nearby, and even if it hardly looked inviting, the lights within meant it was occupied. He would rush into any crypt or morgue or mausoleum if it meant ridding himself of the monster on his tail. 

Juno might have had a stupid sounding job, but that didn’t make him stupid. He picked his fights. He often picked too many of them. His death wish wasn’t big enough to test the speed of his draw and the accuracy of a silver bullet against the same creature who had sunk his teeth into the neck of kings and nobles and bled them all dry. If he remembered his studying, which he didn’t usually, there was a certain kind of strength in newly acquired human blood. Juno didn’t want to have to test that firsthand. 

There was a bounty on Nureyev’s head a mile wide, and Juno could see exactly why. As much as the ransom had been set by those as rich and despotic as the nobles had made his meals for the decade in which he served in the country’s court, anyone with that kind of power and appetite needed to be stopped. Juno didn’t need to think over the morality of going after a murderer and a dozen or so murderers like him. At the end of the day, it was the right thing to do, and hell, he got paid for it. 

Even if he had driven enough stakes into enough unbeating hearts to know exactly which types of wood carved through vampires the best, he wasn’t too proud to run from a particularly powerful one. 

His train of thought derailed when the churning sky above split open with a scream, letting loose every drop of pounding rain it had been holding back by force. It stung at Juno’s face and eyes like bullets and battered mercilessly at the rest of him. He was sure he couldn’t have fired his gun if he wanted to, and even if he still was being pursued, Nureyev too would have been slowed by the storm’s hand holding him back from any forward motion on the cruel and twisting trail. 

Juno felt the door before he saw it. He hadn’t realized his trembling legs had dragged him up to a shadowy manor house until he felt marble steps beneath his feet and an iron knocker fall beneath his hand. Gasping what felt like lungfuls of water, Juno seized a second hand around the ring and slammed it into the door. 

He couldn’t tell if the door had shuddered in response, or if it merely shook with the thunder that threatened to crumble the very sky in tandem. 

“Anybody in there?” Juno cried, though his words seemed spirited away by a howling gust of wind. “Come on, I’m drowning out here!”

Juno slammed his shoulder into the door when it wouldn’t budge, but found himself saved the trouble of a dislocation when the door creaked open and a pair of dry, steady arms caught him in his subsequent fall. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” someone dry and warm and gentle murmured. 

Somewhere, a million miles away, Juno heard the door close. 

He was still blinking water out of his eyes and trying to find something to dry his face on when the stranger, only a vague, shadowy shape in the foyer of the manor, took his coat. Juno felt some distant sense of loss when he realized none of his weaponry was on his person anymore, but with a hand still resting on the wall for support, Juno could only catch his breath and feel lucky to have a roof over his head. 

When his rescuer returned, he came bearing a candelabra and a towel. 

“Here,” he smiled, though concern had muddled the expression so that when the flickering light illuminated his face, the man appeared as if he were looking upon the face of a dying lover. “Why don’t you take a seat by the fire, darling? You’re shaking terribly.”

Juno hadn’t had the time to worry about his exhaustion or his bone-deep chill, but every ache and pain and stressor collapsed upon him all at once when his host mentioned his state. 

He felt two things in quick succession. First, his knees buckled. Second, a steadying hand caught his back and helped him upright once more. Juno had barely registered either of them when his host began to march him into a nearby chair at the parlor’s fireside. 

“I’ll get your chair wet,” Juno started to protest, but his host shook his head vehemently and pressed him into the seat.

“It’s not an issue,” he insisted, reaching over Juno to towel his hair down and wipe the water out of his eyes. “Once you’re feeling a little drier, I’ll get you a blanket. In the meantime, do you prefer coffee or tea?”

Juno blinked up at the figure, still shadowy as the fire continued to climb its way towards life. 

“I don’t really care,” he grimaced, doing his best to sit up in the chair. “Whatever’s easier.”

“Tea it is, then,” his host smiled. “You stay right there. I don’t want you exerting yourself until you’ve recovered.”

“Don’t think I could if I wanted to,” Juno huffed.

The man made his way off towards a distant orange light that must have been the kitchen. As much as Juno wanted to stand up and look around, the dark seemed too potent and his legs seemed too weak and he could do little more than sink further into his chair and try to dry himself to a point of semi-comfort. 

From what Juno could see, the manor ached for light of any kind. He could make out little more than what was brightened from the sputtering, wind-weakened tenacity of the fireplace. The candelabra left upon a table nearby was little help either. He seemed to be in a little oasis of light within a manor where every panel of wood looked like the lid of a coffin and every carpet contained a thousand shifting, snarling faces.

Juno assumed the high, eyelike windows lightened up the manor by day, but for the time being, they merely flickered like the long, white teeth of a predator when lightning flashed by. He pulled the towel a little tighter around his shoulders and mourned the loss of his weaponry, though he knew his hands shook too badly to shoot, even if they were gradually warmed by the fire. 

He barely had time to wonder what kind of man lived apparently alone in a chateau such as this when the host himself hurried back into the room, arms tight around a cluttered mess of different supplies. 

He set the brunt of his offering down upon the nearby couch and returned to Juno’s side with a plush blanket and a steaming cup of tea. 

“There you are,” he smiled, if not a little nervously when he pressed the drink into Juno’s hands. His breath still caught, as if he had run around the entire manor in search of supplies to assist him. “Don’t drink it too quickly. I know you’re cold, but warming up all at once can be unpleasant. Besides, I think it may just be too hot to drink. I’m not a particular proponent of steaming drinks myself, so I may have overdone it.”

Juno cut him off with an appreciative nod and a sip from the cup.

“It’s good,” he sighed. “Thanks.”

“And if you’re still feeling cold, I’ve brought you this,” the host continued, trading the towel for a blanket. “I’ve brought much more in the way of first aid. I can’t tell how much or how little you might have been injured in your journey through the forest, you poor thing, and I was—”

“This is fine,” Juno chuckled.

“Is there anything else I can get you, for the time being?”

“Why don’t you give me a name to call you?” Juno asked between sips of the tea.

Juno’s first good look at his host was in the firelight, where the flickering orange left only half a shadow across his face. He held his bottom lip between his teeth in thought, which seemed as handsome an emotion on him as any. His face was as sharp as it was softened by the hearth nearby, looking fierce and domesticated all at once. He was, most notably, the nicest thing Juno had set his eyes upon for weeks. 

“Peter Ransom,” his host answered after a moment’s pause. 

“Alright, Peter Ransom,” Juno returned, trying to smile but feeling his face contorted by a yawn.

“And yours, darling?”

“Juno,” he murmured, though the begging, clawing pull of sleep slurred his words. “Juno Steel.”

“Why don’t you get some rest then, Juno Steel?” Ransom chuckled, standing from his seat in the chair he had pulled up beside Juno’s. “I’ll be here to check on you in the morning. I doubt this storm will let me go much of anywhere.”

“Mhm,” Juno managed. 

Realistically, he should have searched every inch of the manor for warning signs and run Ransom through a mile-long list of interrogation questions before ever setting foot into the manor of a noble he had never heard of, let alone met before. However, Juno ached as if the storm had beaten him, rather than merely impeded his way. His heart still pounded with the thought of pursuit, and his hands still trembled around his cup of tea. Worry, he decided, could wait for the morning. 

The last thing Juno felt before sleep claimed him were a pair of gentle, gloved hands taking his tea cup away before he could doze off let it spill.


	2. Dinner with the Host

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more ~spooky~ but i mean it's peter don't be too scared he's just that bitch 
> 
> Content warnings for blood (BIG ONE), kidnapping mention, death/murder mention, food/drink, mentioned (past) non-pet animal death, nausea mention, gun mention

Juno was still in the chair when he awoke, though a small mountain of pillows propped up his head and neck to keep him free of aches. While his joints still complained and his legs still felt more iron than flesh, he was distinctly warm and distinctly comfortable. 

He could only tell the late hour of the day for the towering, many handed grandfather clock that peered over the parlor like an owl on a branch high above a field. Its face seemed to scan over the floor like that bird of prey, in constant search for field mice. Even if it hardly seemed out of the ordinary, something about the device made the hair on the back of Juno’s neck prickle. 

He blinked and shook his head, as if to rid himself of the clock’s image by force. It remained stubbornly within his line of sight.

Even if the storm had darkened the sky, such an hour upon the clock’s face would hardly make sense. Juno could smell a midday meal roasting, while the clock suggested a far later hour. 

Juno squinted. It seemed the clock was stopped, as halted in its unending course through time as Juno was in his search for the vampire Peter Nureyev, who had chased him to this odd place the night before. 

When Juno stood, his back wasn’t kind enough to hold back from cracking. He grimaced, though the expression fell away into a flattered confusion when he noticed he had been wrapped in someone else’s overcoat. The sleeves fell just too long and the body was just too small to pull tight around himself, but he couldn’t help a slight smile at the gesture. As strange as Peter Ransom had been, he seemed, at the very least, considerate. 

The smell of the coat clung to him as he paced, if just to stretch his legs. The fabric carried a gentle, yet unyielding scent not unlike dried roses and copper. Juno could only wonder what kind of cologne a man such as Ransom wore for his clothing to smell half as sharp and eccentric as he. 

When pacing an arc over the marble floor at the fireside proved boring, Juno pulled the coat as tight as he could and took himself elsewhere in the parlor. 

By day, those windows seemed kinder, though the churning storm still leered from above. Curtains of an elaborate black lace trailed all the way down from the high-set windows. While they did not shutter the dark sky from view, they dampened its effect upon the interior of the manor. 

The bloody red of the carpeting and dark green of the wallpaper gave the parlor a kind of warmth that was welcome over the biting gray of the storm outside. The wood paneling on the walls, twin in color to both the great doors outside and the snaking, spiraling staircase, made the entire manor feel more like a study than it did a palace. 

As much as Juno wanted to believe the manor to be kinder when lit by the hazy gray of daytime, certain small details seemed to scuttle up his spine as he paced his way around the room. 

He saw no coat hook, nor did he see any closet where his coat and the valuables within might have been spirited away to. He also saw no sign of any serventry, something particularly odd for a manor of this size. Juno supposed that explained the thin film of dust on those looming banisters, as well as the small maze of cobwebs collecting in the occasional corner. 

His pacing paused when a creak from one of the manor’s upper floors revealed the location of his host. Juno swallowed, reminding himself his suspicion was merely paranoia, and in snooping, he would put himself in danger of losing a roof over his head during the weather event of the century. 

However, with his gun and stake and garlic and crucifix all tucked in some unseen closet, Juno decided to err on the side of his own comfort. 

Juno remained frozen until he heard the mournful lilt of a violin sonata, something soft and minor and, most importantly, distant. When the music had proceeded for long enough that Juno could be sure he would not be disturbed, he hurried towards the kitchen, following the scent of that roasting midday meal.

As expected, some cut of meat or another was roasting above a flame. Juno frowned, giving the spit a turn or two, just in case Ransom had forgotten to do so in favor of pursuing a moment to practice his violin. He couldn’t help but furrow his brow at the thought that someone cooking for himself might do so with such a lack of attention. 

However, the smell of the roasting meat did little to hide a secondary scent that sidled into the air like venom getting cozy with a vein. 

There had been something oddly familiar in the smell of that coat, and only when his eyes caught the sight of a small army of bottles stuffed upon the shelves did he realize exactly which scent the roses had been covering. 

He prayed, for once, that his paranoia might be overactive. However, with his hands twitching as if fire had been injected into his bloodstream, he reached forward to seize one hastily corked bottle by the neck. He held it up to the light of the nearby window, but no sign of the liquid’s color showed, only the dark, mossy green of the bottle and the viscosity of the liquid sloshing within. 

Juno swallowed, and with a wince tearing across his face, popped the cork out of the bottle’s mouth. 

The bottle gasped out a sound like a gunshot and Juno jumped, his pounding heart barely calmed by the continuing sound of violin music from somewhere up that extensive flight of stairs. 

He leaned forward and sniffed the neck of the bottle, only to sputter and choke as a whiff of that hot, coppery stench seized at his mouth and nose and throat like one giant, solid hand, throttling him and stealing the air from his lungs. Juno barely had time to set the bottle down, knowing any longer in his hand would have seen the glass shattering as he cast it away from himself and onto the floor. 

He clapped a hand over his mouth to quiet a cry or a gag or whatever it was that wanted to bloom from his throat at the smell and sight and distinct panic that came with the recognition of blood, bottled and stored like a flower left hanging in the pantry to dry. 

Common sense returned to his legs before it returned to his head, for he had hardly processed that the coat that reeked of blood and roses still clung to him when he turned from the kitchen pantry and sprinted as fast as his leadened legs could carry him. 

When he reached the door, he slammed a fist upon it. The wood remained unyielding, only producing a mocking crash as it bucked against a lock that would not budge. Juno turned his gaze upon a great iron chain and padlock around the handles that certainly had not been there the night before. 

While there was comfort in knowing the key must be somewhere within the manor, Juno’s heart surged into his throat at the thought of why exactly he might have been locked inside at all. He doubted the storm could do much damage to doors of that size, and from what he had seen in the kitchen, he supposed he could only pray he wouldn’t be the next bottle crammed into that overpacked morgue of a shelf. 

Juno shot a glance around for another exit before he could entirely drive himself to panic. However, something else in the entrance hall caught his eye before he could even be bothered with a window.

Directly across from the door, a great portrait of a young man in clothing a few decades out of date, but no less lovely, watched over the hall. He wore a sharp, predatory smile, as if he himself had set the lock around the door. If his teeth were sharp, his eyes were even sharper, dazzling with a kind of dark and clever flame that made Juno’s heart skip a beat. As handsome as the figure in the painting was, there were two things Juno couldn’t ignore. 

First, a bronze placard beneath the image bore the name “Peter Nureyev.”

Second, he wore the exact same face as Ransom. 

If Juno had been thinking, he would have run for the nearest chair and tried to sharpen a leg into a stake. He would have raided the kitchen for a knife and followed the sound of violin music until he had done enough damage to Peter Nureyev to keep occupied as Juno searched for the silver bullets that bore his name.

However, if Juno had been thinking, he would have noticed that the violin music had long since stopped, and that the man whose face bore an identical resemblance to the man in the portrait was fixing him with the same victorious smile from the top of the stairwell. 

“Oh, Juno,” he sighed, though he looked no less gleeful for the tone of his words. “It seems you’ve found the skeleton in my closet, haven’t you?”

“You—” Juno snarled. 

“Apologies for the deception, but I knew you would hardly get half of the rest you needed if I told you my name upfront,” Nureyev continued anyway. He smiled like a cat with a mouse under its paw, taking pleasure in the creature’s futile squirming.

Juno sputtered out a half-response, but it seemed Peter couldn’t be stopped.

“You can drive a stake into my heart after you’ve eaten, darling,” Nureyev huffed. “For the time being, I would rather you not try to exert yourself to that extent on an empty stomach.”

“You tried to kill me,” Juno sputtered, frozen to the spot as Nureyev made his way down the great, winding staircase step by step. He tried to pretend there wasn’t any part of him focused on how Nureyev carried himself like a nobleman, every motion of his long legs like a step in a dance and the trailing of his cape behind him like a horde of suitors. 

“As did you, my darling,” he chuckled. “All’s fair in love and war, I suppose. Besides, you had no way of knowing I let that man live.”

Nureyev paused at the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets and a smile on his face that looked far less malicious up close, even if his fangs still bared themselves in all their deadly glory. 

“How the hell am I supposed to believe you? You lock me in here—”

“I can hardly be blamed for locking my own front door. Regardless, I saved your life,” Nureyev corrected. “Now, as much as I am frankly adoring this conversation, I think it would be best to continue it over dinner. I haven’t cooked for anyone in over thirty years, and I’m quite terrified I might burn the meat.”

“If you’re trying to poison me—” Juno growled, only to be broken off by a strangely kind chuckle. 

“Oh, my dear,” Nureyev laughed. “Poison tastes terrible. I wouldn’t poison you even if I did want you dead.”

When Nureyev guided him to the dining room with all the gusto of a tour guide showing him around a museum, Juno couldn’t help but notice that Peter’s hand shot away when an accidental brush of arms saw Juno jump. 

Mere hours before, Nureyev had gone to every extent he could in order to make him feel safe and cared for. He doted and preened and checked Juno over as if his touch in itself could undo the damage of the storm. However, the moment Juno expressed discomfort, there were suddenly two more feet between them, as if materialized from thin air. 

Juno tried not to think about that for too long, remembering the bounty and the lock on the door. Manners didn’t equate morals.

Nureyev left him alone in the dining room, if only to return with a plate and two drinks. Juno examined his own chalice for anything that might have resembled poison or any kind of sedative, be it in smell or appearance or the taste of a drop. 

Peter took a seat across the table. As far as it stretched, he did not sit at the head, with his only two chairs on either side of the longer end of the table, so that he and Juno might have a meal without being shouting distance apart. 

When Nureyev saw his examination of the glass, he sighed. 

“I haven’t laced your meal with anything, you know,” Nureyev huffed. “It’s barely seasoned, unfortunately. I didn’t know exactly to what extent you preferred, so I thought it would be safest to keep things mild.”

“If you’re not trying to kill me, then why the hell is the front door locked?” Juno spat. 

“Juno, do you recall what you said to me in the alley the other night?” Nureyev began, pausing for a sip from his chalice. He curled his lip at the taste and barely quelled a shudder.

“What’s in the glass?” Juno shot instead of answering. 

“Squirrel,” Nureyev grimaced. “I do need to start labelling my bottles, but I suppose I have the rest of my life to start doing so. It’s an unpleasant supplement, but if I start killing too many village cattle, I’m afraid somebody would take notice.”

Juno raised an eyebrow.

“Not human, then?”

Nureyev’s hand flew to his chest in indignation. 

“Human? I’m a vampire, Juno, not a monster,” he scoffed. “Human blood is a necessary evil, so I keep it that way. If there is a certain individual doing someone a particular amount of harm, I may consider injuring them to a survivable degree, but for sustenance? I could never.”

“What about those nobles?” Juno pressed. 

“Monsters and murderers, all of them. Half of them poisoned each other and I took care of the rest,” Nureyev shrugged. “Eat your food, darling, it’s been far too long and you must be famished.”

“I’m not done with—”

Peter huffed. 

“And this storm isn’t done with either of us,” he interrupted. “Why don’t you just eat your dinner and I’ll tell you everything you need to know, alright?”

“Fine,” Juno conceded. 

“Very well then,” Nureyev offered a smile when Juno started to cut into his food. “The door is locked because in the alleyway last night, you told me you were one of two vampire hunters after me. I gave up my chase before you reached the woods and went home, so our second meeting was purely coincidence.”

Juno raised a hand to pause him. 

“What about my coat?”

“In my coat closet, Juno. I’m not a confusing person,” Nureyev chuckled.

Juno shook his head. 

“What about my gun?”

Nureyev’s expression soured. 

“I assume you mean the one with which you intend to kill me,” Peter replied slowly, cup frozen halfway back to the table. 

“Look—” Juno started. 

“I might have resigned myself to death when I opened my doors to you, Juno, but that does not mean I will make it easy for you,” Nureyev continued coldly. “I hope you can understand.”

“It means a lot that you saved me,” Juno returned, though every additional word felt as if he had to wrench it from himself by force. “I just—”

“You don’t trust me,” Nureyev finished. 

“Yeah.”

Peter shrugged. 

“I can see why not,” he mused. “If it makes you feel any better, the key to the front door is underneath the carpet in the foyer. You may leave any time you wish, so long as you don’t let anything else in while doing so. However, you did fare terribly against the storm last night. I would advise you to wait some while before attempting to brave it again. At least until your coat is dry.”

Juno blinked. 

“Why?”

“I only meant to scare you off, but when that led you to my doorstep, I felt I had no choice but to take you in,” Nureyev smiled, exasperated. “I must thank you for doing the burden of trusting me to that extent.”

Juno was glad he had the meal to distract him from having to summon a response. However, the taste of the food on his tongue was enough to make his face contort and his spine shiver. 

“Shit,” he murmured. 

“It’s not poisoned, I’ve told you that,” Nureyev huffed, a slight edge of anger creeping into his words. 

“Not that,” Juno winced, pausing to swallow. “It’s uh—”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow and Juno felt his face go hot. 

“How do I say this nicely?” Juno tried to begin. Nureyev’s glare cut him off. 

“You don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahoo!!! More vampire nonsense :D
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button or I'll drink a squirrel
> 
> Find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric (where I am still taking free tpp commissions!!) or on twitter @withane22 !!


	3. Sprung From My Only Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh it's been more than 2 chapters looks like we need a montage
> 
> Content warnings for blood, murder mention, perilous weather

Nureyev took the early afternoon hours to continue showing Juno around the mansion, laying every secret bare with a casual shrug. 

He opened a trap door or two to display the extra bottled blood piled beneath the floorboards, if only so Juno would feel no need to pry his way through the manor’s swarm of mysteries. Peter guided him through each and every secret passage, from the one hidden behind a copy of a particularly bland epic poem in the library to the tunnel that connected the guest bedroom with his own. 

That hallway in particular was the one that made Juno’s skin crawl, so Nureyev detached the little brass key from its ring and pressed it into Juno’s hand, instructing him to brush aside the tapestry across from the foot of the bed and to lock the door if it made him uncomfortable. 

Nureyev’s own quarters were a cozy kind of mess of books and papers and a few dozen tailored outfits strewn about. Peter made to apologize for the mess, but Juno merely waved him off, knowing that any conversation more intimate than one between a host and a guest would do a cruel amount of things to that traitorous organ within his chest. 

However, of all the many rooms and stairwells and hidden passages, the one little corner of the manor that caught Juno’s eye was the library. 

Calling the library a little corner of the manor was alike to calling a castle a quaint little home. Light streamed from windows set high in the walls, even if the sky above continued to groan and bare its bright, white teeth as the storm raged. However, with the warmth of candle light below, Juno felt he could have sat at one of the many underused chairs for hours, listening to the rain patter on the glass above and the wind howling somewhere a million miles away.

Books of every color lined the walls, some bound in leather, others in paper, and many of them well-loved. Nearby, one of those rolling ladders Juno had always secretly wished to propel himself upon clung to the shelf. He forgot his composure, letting a smile strike alight on his face. 

Nureyev returned the look with a fond one. For just a moment, he seemed to forget just which part of the library he was showing off as his eyes, dark and soft as the haze of early evening above, trailed over Juno’s face. 

“And if you’re particular to romance novels,” he broke himself out of his thoughts to chuckle. “I’ve arranged these shelves by genre. Now, I’m no proponent of the works of regency England, though I must say I found the occasional work, if not entirely entertaining, hardly a waste of my time.”

“Quit beating around the bush,” Juno snorted. “Which novel?”

Nureyev winced. 

“I hope you might not judge me for this opinion, but I am no particular fan of Austen,” he returned slowly, terror flashing across his face when Juno raised an eyebrow. 

“Excuse me?” 

“I didn’t take you as the type for romance novels,” Nureyev chuckled. 

“Whether or not I like romance novels doesn’t matter here,” Juno pressed on, voice raising a little higher than he felt it should in a library. “You don’t like Austen? Are you kidding me?”

“Juno, I haven’t had food in forty years. You can hardly blame me for a lack of taste,” Peter began to smile, sharpened teeth poking through in a manner that seemed more mischievous than unkind.

“Don’t make puns at me,” Juno growled, though he found a similar kind of smile had tugged on his lips as well. “She’s a master novelist.”

“Tell me, Juno,” Nureyev began loftily, striding his way over towards the shelf in question and beginning to search for one book or another. Juno jogged after him, face still hot from the joking argument. “From what vantage point are you able to say that? Have you, perhaps, become well-versed in novels similar to hers?”

“Shut up,” Juno snorted. “I can like romance novels.”

“I’m not judging your tastes,” Nureyev chuckled. 

“Then what the hell are you doing?” Juno shot back. 

Nureyev’s face bloomed into a knowing grin, teeth bared as if he knew exactly how much Juno’s heart had begun to race at the sight of them alone. 

“I merely find it novel that a lady such as yourself would have a preference for such things,” Nureyev shrugged. “A vampire hunter, of course, sounds like a rather barbaric profession to me, though I’m afraid I’ve had little experience other than what I can gather from the job description and my own personal biases.”

Juno sighed. 

“Most of them are assholes,” he admitted. “I just—I thought it was the right thing to do, you know?”

“And now?” Nureyev prompted, his smile having dwindled.

Juno shook his head. 

“Forget it,” he huffed. “I don’t want to kill you. That’s all you need to worry about.”

“Wonderful,” Nureyev returned flatly. “Why don’t I show you the remainder of the library?”

Juno nodded, though he hardly heard another word of Nureyev’s tour. He kept some vague memory of where certain books he recognized resided along the great, curving shelves that hugged either wall of the towering, windowed room. However, his mind remained a thousand miles away. 

Peter seemed to be a good man. As often as Juno had found the vampires he was assigned to blatant murderers or trying to kill him before he could manage to draw, he couldn’t help but wonder if some of them had been good people too. 

He supposed he had never met someone quite like Nureyev, and if he truly tried to stretch his mind, had never gone after someone who hadn’t been actively killing in the weeks leading up to his assignment. That didn’t make his stomach twist any less. 

Nureyev seemed to take notice, leaving the topic alone for the time being. It never came up in the remainder of his house and library tour, and afterwards, as if apologizing for some great slight in a very subtle way, he offered to show Juno around the music room, and perhaps, to teach him a simple song or two on the piano. 

Juno wanted to decline. He wanted to keep his space and prepare himself to fake Nureyev’s death when the storm ended and he could finally report back to the agency. However, there was something magnetic about the idea of sitting next to him on a piano bench with their legs and elbows touching and perhaps, those careful, gentle hands on his own, if only to tell him where to rest his fingers upon the keys. As much as common sense told him to mentally prepare himself never to see his target again, his common sense was far weaker than the pull of Peter Nureyev’s smile. 

He took his seat upon the bench, hardly ready for the touch of Nureyev’s knee against his. For a moment, Juno wondered if the storm had reached its claws into the manor and struck him, setting him alight with electricity. However, it seemed the gentle, friendly, and no less sharp smile playing upon Nureyev’s lips merely had the same effect. 

“Here, Juno,” Nureyev began, taking Juno by the hand to place it an octave below where Peter’s own right hand lay. “There you are. Keep your hand in a position just like that.”

Juno nodded, for if he were to attempt to say anything, he knew that he would only sputter. He felt a brief wave of relief that Nureyev could see none of the heat burning at his cheeks when Peter shone a proud look upon him. 

“Good. Now repeat after me,” Nureyev prompted, plunking out a firm and slow melody that Juno could nearly place. 

Juno followed suit, wincing when one note fell out of line. 

“Don’t despair, my darling, you’ve hardly begun to learn,” Peter smiled. “Why don’t we try that one again?”

They went on like that for some time, until muscle memory and gentle, kind words of affirmation, support, and correction guided Juno to the proper version of the melody. When a few correct measures became many, he switched positions with Nureyev, plunking out the right hand part while Nureyev played the left. Once in a while, their hands collided, just a little too close and a little too forgetful of the other person at the bench. 

Juno tried to pretend his stuttering was merely shock. Nureyev fixed him with a look so fond that staring into it was like looking into the face of the sun. 

After a few tries, a handful of laughing fits, and a few more momentary shared gazes that seemed as if they could stretch into eternity, something akin to the sheet music Nureyev read his part off of began to bloom from the piano, sounding even sweeter when Peter began to work the pedal. 

Juno could hardly care if Nureyev had to light a candle as they continued to work on the piece, as the early evening sky had grown dark and the storm had grown darker. It seemed he could sit at the piano bench for the rest of his life and die happy. 

A few more attempts at the melody saw a joyful cheer bursting from Nureyev, whose hands flew into the air at what had apparently been some great success. Seeming to forget his reservations about touch entirely, he threw his arms around Juno and pressed a rouged kiss to his cheek. 

Juno couldn’t find it in him to complain. Pride swelled in his chest at the accomplished gymnopedie strolling its way from the piano, for he could hardly care if it was simple. With an arm still around Nureyev’s waist, he felt he might have been watching their child learning to walk. 

“That was fantastic,” Nureyev grinned. “You were fantastic.”

“You did the hard part,” Juno chuckled. “You used four fingers at one point. I was using one.”

“You’re a quick learner,” Peter waved him off. 

As much as Juno wanted to spend the rest of his life learning gymnopedies at that bench, such things as food and sleep called him, and he was forced to spend the remainder of his evening coming down from the strange, heady joy that had filled his chest when sitting pressed up against Peter Nureyev. 

That night, he felt safe when he retired to bed, only kept from sleep by a strange, childlike excitement for the next day to dawn somewhere behind the raging storm. 

The storm refused to cease for weeks, though Nureyev proved ready for such a lock up, having stored food in the case that he might have human guests at the same time as an attack from the townspeople. Most days passed similarly to the first, though without the same heated negotiations over trust. 

A week into Juno’s stay, Nureyev slipped a key and a note under his door by night. 

“The first door on the left in the east wing of the manor should hold your coat and affects. If you intend to kill me at any time, do so with those supplies and end my suffering quickly. Yours in devotion, Peter Nureyev,” the note all but winked up from Juno’s floor. 

It was safe to say Juno barely touched the key. He merely placed it atop the dresser Nureyev had stocked with a few weeks worth of clothing, just in case the storm should continue to rage, or perhaps, some pressure should convince Juno to extend his stay. 

Juno had been dreading the end of the storm. His absence from the agency would be noted, and if he wanted to keep his job, he would need to fake Nureyev’s death and make a point of never seeing him again. As much as the growls of the storm hung over his head in a constant, exhausting threat, their ending cast a far darker shadow.

For the time being, Juno made a point of appreciating having another person to live with, something he had sorely lacked for far too many years of his life. 

He made conversation during shared meals and didn’t draw his hand away if their fingers accidentally brushed. He argued about the books in Nureyev’s library and devoured those novels they traded, if just to have something more than the weather to discuss. When enough time at the piano got him to a point at which he could play on his own, he accompanied Nureyev’s violin sonatas and shared a grin with him when the music went particularly well. 

On one occasion, a heated debate about the representation of vampires in one of several recent novels apparently reached such a point of exertion that they both fell asleep entangled on the couch. When the morning came, Juno was nearly positive Nureyev was pretending to be asleep, just so the two of them wouldn’t have to disentangle too soon.

Juno tried to do the same, but his lazy, half-awake smile revealed him. A few minutes of Nureyev doting over every cracking joint that sputtered when Juno stood saw them somehow, disentangling. However, when offering a hand to help Peter up and feeling the way their fingers refused to tarry from one another for just a moment too long, some realization within Juno did not strike him so much as it bloomed. 

He didn’t particularly want the storm to end. He didn’t want to return to his old job, nor did he want to ever pick up a stake again. His life would be complete if he spent the rest of it as a strange individual living atop a hill with an even stranger gentleman. 

He found himself hoping that in that perfect future which he imagined, they might be doing more than living side by side. 

If Juno had a single complaint about the entire scenario, it was that the evening hours saw them parting. Nureyev would spend several more hours sleepless, as adjusting his waking hours to that of a living person had been difficult. Therefore, Juno saw no reason the fall of evening should have to be the end to their togetherness.

It felt wrong to suggest to sleep together, for he worried Nureyev might take his proposition the wrong way. The late October nights merely grew cold, and Juno merely wished he had someone with whom he could weather them through. 

Juno’s quandary of how to ask such a thing was solved when one cold and sleepless night saw him awoken from his state of semi-rest by a knock from behind the tapestry. 

“Nureyev?” He slurred out, words far less awake than he felt. 

“I hope I didn’t wake you, darling,” Nureyev began, voice muffled from behind the secret door Juno had locked on his first day at the manor. “I’m so sorry, but—”

“Couldn’t sleep anyway,” Juno grimaced as he rolled away from the comforting half-warmth of his bedsheets. 

He groped blindly for the right key upon his dresser, somehow running face-first into his bedpost instead. As much as it hurt to do so, he felt his face droop into a weary smile at Nureyev’s audible grimace. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Been worse,” Juno chuckled, letting out a victorious noise when he brushed the tapestry aside and sunk the key into its respective lock.

He turned the key and opened that locked door that had, for the last several weeks, been their barrier of intimacy. Nureyev broke another barrier of intimacy when he pulled Juno into a hug. A sigh crumpled out of him when Juno squeezed him in return. 

“You okay?” 

“I’m afraid sleep has proved evasive tonight,” Nureyev explained, voice muffled into Juno’s shoulder.

“Yeah, me too, don’t worry,” Juno murmured into the top of his head. 

“I’ve found myself rather lonely, tonight,” Nureyev admitted. “I can handle being sleepless, but I’m afraid your company has accustomed me to having someone with which to share my waking hours.”

“How long has it been since you had company before me?” Juno asked, trying to remember how to hold his hands to mirror the hugs of his friends and family who had made him feel the safest in their embraces. 

“It must be thirty years, by now.”

“Christ,” Juno breathed, subconsciously pulling him closer. 

“You’ve been one of the best things to happen to me in a very long while,” Peter confessed. 

“Let’s lay down,” Juno suggested in response, knowing he wouldn’t be able to match half of the poetry Nureyev might say.

Nureyev nodded. Juno took that as his opportunity to stumble their walking hug into bed, for no purpose but to be there and holding him close. He hardly spared a glance for the key to the coat room where it glinted from the dresser. 

“I’ll warn you, I doubt I’ll fall asleep. That’s no fault of your own, darling, but—“

“Shut up and cuddle with me,” Juno mumbled. 

Nureyev pulled him all the closer to his chest, as if chasing the kind of body heat he hadn’t known for himself in decades. Juno had no idea if sleep remained elusive for Nureyev, for it claimed him first, tugging him towards the most comfortable rest he had known in years in the arms of the man he was meant to have killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY!!! dammit two chapters is too long for me to go without cuddlin
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll HUG YOU
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm still taking free (that's right! free!) penumbra commissions in both places!


	4. The Magic Spell You Cast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!! Sorry this one's a bit late, busy day!
> 
> Content warnings for blood, death mention, illness/injury, and food/drink mention

Juno awoke to the ever-present sound of the storm outside, a distant and soft rage that he had become accustomed to after enough days spent cowering from the fangs of the sky itself. However gentle the rumble of thunder felt, it paled in comparison to the feeling of fingers on Juno’s scalp.

He could have spent his entire life there, feeling safe and warm and desired.

“Morning,” Juno murmured, a smile spilling across his face in the same lazy way dawning sun seeps through a window on a late spring day. 

Peter was already awake. He paused the motion of his hands to press a kiss atop Juno’s head.

“I’m glad to see you awake, my dear,” Nureyev grinned, his words soft. “I awoke far too long before you, and I missed you dearly for every second we spent apart.”

Juno snorted, though he raised his head for a look at the owner of that pleasant voice anyway. Nureyev smiled back down with a reverence as sweet as the mournful hum of his violin.

The dossier on Peter claimed he had powers of manipulation unseen in any other vampire. Juno hadn’t believed it when he read it, even poking fun at the manuscript while his fellow hunters glared. However, either Nureyev had reached somewhere within his soul and seized it with one graceful hand, or this was just what it felt like to fall in love.

Juno decided to brush aside the thought, worming his way up so he might look Peter in the eye as they spoke. 

Even with his teeth bared in that lovely grin, they seemed softer when cast in the rosy light of dawn. The gentle curve of his cheek seemed as if it might fit into Juno’s hand like a glove. Just laying there, tangled in Juno’s arms and legs and bedsheets, Nureyev seemed like a statue carved by a loving hand, more beautiful than any living person could ever bear to be. 

When Juno could stand merely looking no longer, he laid his hand upon Peter’s cheek and felt himself smile when Nureyev’s beam palpably widened under his touch. 

“Is that how you feel about me, then?” Nureyev mused, though his blown pupils and the steady sincerity of his voice betrayed any joke he might have made in the hopes of dodging the unspoken question that had wedged itself in whatever millimeters were left between their chests.

“I feel—” 

Juno broke off for a sigh. 

“You don’t have to write me poetry if you’ve just awoken, my dear,” Peter returned gently. 

“You make me feel a lot,” Juno confessed, feeling the hopeless, terrified look on his face blooming into something softer when Nureyev chuckled. 

“I suppose that will suffice,” he smiled. “If it’s any consolation, you make me feel quite a lot as well.”

“God, that’s a relief,” Juno laughed, seeming to pull Nureyev with him into exhausted, early-morning hysterics, quieted only by their proximity to one another and the common courtesy of not doubling over with somebody else in their arms. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Nureyev finally breathed, his tone steadying as he gradually composed himself. “If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of ‘a lot?’”

Juno paused, feeling his brow furrow and his eyes dance around Nureyev’s face, as if he might find the answer in the line of Nureyev’s mouth or his bright, dazzling eyes. In a way, Juno supposed he had. 

“A good way,” he finally sputtered out. “I’m not a poet or anything, sorry.”

“There’s no need to be a poet, darling,” Nureyev replied gently. “I was just wondering if you, perhaps, felt the same way as I do. I was hoping I might invite you to prolong your stay in my manor, if that were the case.”

“How long?”

“Indefinitely, I hoped,” Nureyev smiled. 

Peter Nureyev’s smiles were seldom anything different than the victorious baring of teeth seen in his portrait. They were lovely in their own right, every one of them breathtaking in one way or another. Juno had been blessed to have seen dozens of them during his stay at Nureyev’s manor, whether they be bold and flirtatious or soft and domestic. Each and every time Nureyev’s lips formed that familiar shape, it was as if a fire had been struck. Some were blazing torches. Others were candles, like private, domesticated fires that made Juno feel a little safer with the great uncertainty overhead. 

This one, however, was the first of its kind that Juno had seen. Something pleading peeked through, like a single match attempting to light a dark and inky hall. After Juno furrowed his brow for a moment, he recognized that secondary emotion pulling on the back of Nureyev’s smile as fear. 

Juno didn’t have the words to reply to him. He didn’t know how to say that he would give anything just to send a letter back to the agency and retire right then and there, so long as it made that fear dissipate and it meant they might spend a thousand more days like the weeks they had already spent together. 

With no words to express himself, he kissed Nureyev instead. 

Later, Juno would look back and laugh upon his first impression, but he had truly thought Nureyev’s teeth were going to be more of an issue.

He hardly had time to consider that before Nureyev kissed him back, the arms around him pulling him ever tighter and closing what distance was left between them. Juno felt a pleasant sigh against his lips and a murmur that might have been his name, but his head was too high up in the stratosphere to process any of it, for he was sharing a bed with, holding, and most importantly, kissing Peter Nureyev.

When finally, such cruelties as discomfort and a need for air parted them, Nureyev mirrored the hand upon his face by resting his own palm against Juno’s cheek, thumb running a gentle line over a patch of skin as if anointing it in holy oil. He smiled, as domestic as Juno had ever seen him, and when it seemed he could bear to be parted from Juno for any longer, leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead. 

“I’ve been waiting a very long time to do that,” Nureyev grinned. 

“Yeah,” Juno managed. “Me too.”

As much as Juno could have spent the rest of his life curled up in bed with the man he was meant to have killed, he found himself called to his feet by hunger and made a mental note to help Nureyev with breakfast. As sweet as his consistent offers to cook were, his food was, more often than not, inedible. 

Juno stood with the usual groan before he could drag himself over to the closet and find one gown or another to wrap himself in. He hadn’t expected the same noise and a series of uncomfortable cracks to come from Nureyev, whose eternal youth seemed to be failing him when he crumpled, catching himself on the banister of the bed. 

“Peter,” Juno started breathlessly, though any further words were whisked away by Nureyev’s dismissive hand.

All the softness granted to his face by the early morning light seemed to have faded in those few moments. Juno knew vampires were undead. However, he had never seen anything but liveliness passing over Nureyev until that instant, in which the roses in his cheeks withered and his face had been drawn gaunt by the dull aches of pain and exhaustion. His eyes fixed only upon a spot in the wood flooring while his chest heaved, breaths steadily slowing. His hand remained tight on the bannister nonetheless.

“Honey,” Juno called for what had to have been the third time, but seemed to be the first Peter had noticed. 

“My apologies, Juno,” Nureyev nodded grimly. “It seems I am still not quite feeling myself.”

Juno raised an eyebrow. 

“Still?”

“Ah yes,” Nureyev began, one hand crawling to the back of his neck sheepishly. “I was feeling particularly unwell last night and was hoping for some amount of company to ease my ailment. I’ll admit, I have not been living quite comfortably with the storm keeping us locked inside. I’m sure I have a container of proper blood somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it.”

Juno nodded, though his gaze still remained on the white of Nureyev’s knuckles. 

“I could always—”

Nureyev shook his head. 

“Not you, darling,” Peter protested. “I don’t hurt good people.”

“If you’re not comfortable, I’m not gonna push you,” Juno began, both hands raised in a kind of surrender. “But I’m just saying, you’ve always got the option, and I’m willing. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

Nureyev managed a weak smile, reaching across the room to give Juno’s hand a squeeze.

“Why don’t we elect to have a good day?” Nureyev suggested, as if mindset might do anything for his health. 

“I don’t think that’s gonna—”

“Nonsense,” Nureyev insisted. He strode over to the closet, seeming slightly more steady, now that his aches had begun to subside. “Would you mind wearing this one for me? I haven’t seen you in red before, darling. I think I might just die on the spot if you wore it to supper tonight.”

It seemed Nureyev had brushed the subject out of the way by hand. Juno couldn’t blame him. He would also be pretty embarrassed if he got sick for the first time in forty years immediately after such an important conversation. 

Juno couldn’t help but feel himself yanked along by the direction of conversation, for Nureyev had produced a wine red gown Juno had never felt brave enough to wear before. It seemed that the suggestion was all he needed, however, for mere minutes later, Nureyev’s deft, clever fingers were lacing his corset. 

“Is that too tight, love?” Nureyev paused, having barely pulled the first few laces. 

“Nureyev,” Juno complained, his word jolting when Nureyev tugged them just tighter. 

“Is that better?” Peter pressed, a laugh on the edge of his voice. 

Juno rolled his eyes. 

“I’ll tell you if you’re doing it wrong,” he couldn’t help but smile, even if Nureyev’s touch was consistently shaky, lacing and relacing where his hands had fumbled before. 

The corset took twice as long as it should have, in part because Nureyev paused every few inches just to ensure Juno was still breathing, living, comfortable, or otherwise in a positive state of being. However, his hands shook far too often as they worked their way through the strings. They continued twitching when assisting Juno with the regal wine red and black of his dress and skirts and only stilled when Juno took them in both of his own and squeezed.

Juno had hoped this sudden onslaught of poor health might improve after a meal, though Nureyev merely grimaced over another cup of rodent’s blood, as not to waste the better meals in storage. Juno found himself picking at his food out of sympathy, even if, for once, it wasn’t poor quality.

Nureyev made a point of talking over breakfast, as if trying to prove his wellness in conversation. Instead, he broadcasted an emotion akin to nervous terror, his impatient twitching only worsening when he was not speaking. Breakfast was kept noisy, be it by the movement of Juno’s fork and knife or the constant percussion of Peter’s fingers drumming upon the table. 

He spoke mostly of his plans for the day, many of which were pleasant, if not downright romantic. However, his frantic search for sustenance in one crowded shelf of storage or another became the sole occupant of much of his afternoon, for Juno had to all but drag him to the dining room for a second meal when he overexerted himself in trying to pry up a floorboard.

Juno didn’t think he could forget the image of Nureyev, slumped on the floor in a cold sweat, if he wanted to. He had been roused from his reading by the sound of a crowbar hitting the floor, and for one brief, world-ending moment, had heard the echo a thousand times in his ears before he noticed Peter breathing. When Nureyev managed to return to his feet, he had the gall to insist he was fine and should continue his search.

The day the both of them had hoped to have gone nicely held the same tensions as the skies above, which bated their breath in wait of a lightning strike that would not come. While the storm had torn through the nearby forest all day without remorse, there had not been so much as thunder since the morning. 

When evening saw them in their respective chairs in front of the fire, Juno trying to read his book and Nureyev failing to thumb through his, Juno finally sighed, set the novel down, and fixed Nureyev with an exasperated look. 

“Darling, please don’t start,” Nureyev sighed, glancing up from his book. “The words aren’t coming off the page for me right now. I know you said you loved this one, but—”

Juno shook his head as Nureyev’s ramble fell off into a frustrated sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter huffed. 

“Did you find anything?” Juno asked instead, trying to keep his voice gentle. 

“An empty bottle I drank weeks ago,” Nureyev smiled mirthlessly. 

“Look,” Juno started, though Nureyev’s gaze grew grim before he could continue. 

“I know what you’re going to ask, and I don’t want you to feel like you must just because you are here,” Nureyev cut him off. 

“I’m comfortable with it,” Juno continued. “Just because I think it’s kinda gross and it’s probably gonna suck for a bit doesn’t mean I won’t put up with it. I’m not losing you just because you get stuck with a dumb storm overhead.”

“Juno, I doubt I’ll die,” Nureyev protested. 

“Are you sure?” Juno demanded, the vision of Nureyev, limp and unresponsive, still painfully fresh in his mind.

Nureyev’s jaw clenched. When it seemed he could not bring himself to deny it verbally, he shook his head instead. 

“Exactly.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it. For a moment, he merely let his eyes fall upon the fire around which the two of them had properly met, not as the vampire hunter and the vampire, but as Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev. Around that hearth, they had first been individuals, rather than sides in a conflict. Peter had been so gentle then, even if he hardly knew Juno.

The Nureyev now slouched upon the couch, elbows on his knees and eyes lost in the fire, seemed a shell of the man who had first sheltered Juno from the storm. In the glowing orange light that had once made his face seem that of a holy figure in a painting, the shadows beneath his eyes only looked deeper and the few lines in his face could have been crags in a cliff. 

Juno set his tea aside and strode over to the couch, barely gaining a glance until he had clasped one of Nureyev’s hands in his own and squeezed, his gaze entreating and his touch, hopefully, grounding. 

“Honey,” he started, his voice a sigh. “I’m worried about you.”

Nureyev managed a nod.

“Please,” Juno added.

Nureyev sat up straight, wincing as some audible part of his back popped. He managed a sigh like the dying engine of a train when he leaned back onto the chair and turned his head, if just to catch Juno’s gaze with a soft expression upon which concern and exhaustion walked hand in hand. 

“It’s going to hurt, darling,” he warned. 

“For a moment,” Juno shrugged. 

Nureyev squeezed his hand. 

“Most people scream,” he added. 

“Most people don’t go into it knowing what they’re paying for,” Juno snorted. 

That earned him a smile, as friendly as it was tired. Juno nearly felt a sigh of relief pushed from him upon the sight of Nureyev’s teeth, once more adding that glinting, mischievous quality to the look. 

He knew for certain Peter had agreed when he opened his arms and beckoned Juno to lay across his lap, his head on the end of the couch where Nureyev would usually rest his arm. Peter held him as if he were made of glass, ensuring every layer of his skirt stayed off the floor and the buttons on his high-collared gown were undone enough to prevent any staining. 

Juno couldn’t help but be reminded of those gentle hands that had taken his tea cup before he could fall asleep and spill it. The hands that undid his collar with the care that the rescue of a baby bird might have required felt no different than those that had wrapped a towel and a blanket around his shoulders all those weeks ago. 

He managed a smile at the memory. Nureyev echoed one back.

“Tell me when you’re ready, my love,” Peter murmured, as if whispering a prayer, rather than proposing such a simple act. 

Juno nodded, trying to keep his heart from jumping when Nureyev tilted his head back and pressed a kiss right along his carotid, as if preemptively apologizing for the pair of scars soon to be marring the skin under his lips. 

In all the lessons Juno had been forced to sit through, he had been told that a bite from a vampire was a fate worse than death, and that the sensation made one’s blood boil with venom. The only fire Juno felt in his veins were those spots that burned under Nureyev’s cautious, loving touch.

Juno heard himself gasp at a pair of pinprick pains, every inch worth of tension fleeing him when he felt Nureyev squeeze his hand. Though the sensation following the scarring marks was certainly far from comfortable, the hand sliding around to hold him close by the lower back made him feel as if he were being cherished and worshipped. Somewhere near, lightning struck.

“I love you,” Juno heard himself murmur, though if compelled by endorphins or blood loss or the heady feeling of Nureyev’s lips on his neck, he could not tell. 

Peter raised his head, pupils a mile wide and chest heaving. For a moment, he seemed more predator than man, but the instant shattered in the second he smiled, a chuckle barely hidden behind the mess of red upon his lips. He seemed almost surprised at Juno’s words, but no less delighted to hear them.

“I love you too,” he grinned, though it sounded as if he were asking a question. 

“Great,” Juno chuckled, though he nodded vaguely with his head. “Don’t let that stop you.”

“Are you comfortable if I continue?” Nureyev asked. 

Juno rolled his eyes. 

“You’re starving,” he huffed, fisting a hand in Nureyev’s hair and shoving his head back downwards. “Get in there.”

Any energy Peter had left to argue was long gone, sapped away as he returned to his former work. With no more need to bury his teeth into Juno’s flesh, he merely sucked at the wound until whatever frantic hunger had taken over faded into something gentler and sated. After a few moments longer, he returned to pressing slow and gentle kisses upon the wound, in thanks or apologies or worship, Juno did not know. The sensation was enough to coax a gentle sigh from his throat regardless.

“Done?” Juno asked, unsure he was able to manage many more words. He remembered some vague note about a relaxing agent within those teeth, though he had a feeling he might remember the detail more clearly with the remainder of his blood present.

Nureyev nodded, fumbling through his pockets for a handkerchief. He wiped his lips clean first, as if he had not been far neater than any other vampire Juno had ever seen. Next, he pressed the cloth to Juno’s neck with a gentle, yet firm pressure until he seemed sure the bleeding had ceased. 

“How are you feeling?” He asked tentatively, words almost betraying his terror.

“Head in the clouds,” Juno mused, a smile blooming across his face as he watched Nureyev’s brow knit, still going about his doting.

“That’s not bad, is it?” Nureyev pressed.

“Nope,” Juno all but slurred until he popped the last syllable. That didn’t seem to convince Peter, whose face remained knotted with worry.

When Nureyev discarded the handkerchief on a nearby table, he pulled Juno into his arms for a tight, rib-cracking embrace, head tucked into his shoulder and hands clutching at him ferociously. Juno couldn’t help but think of the way Peter had grasped the bannister that morning.

“Easy,” Juno chuckled. “I’m not gonna drop dead.”

“I didn’t take too much, did I?” Nureyev pressed. 

“I probably couldn’t run a marathon, but I think I could walk,” Juno shrugged, matching Peter’s shaky smile when he found himself laid out on the couch once more. “Could probably do with a glass of water and a nap.”

Nureyev’s face twisted for a moment, as if he were holding back a laugh. He opened his mouth, considering speech, but then shut it with a shake of his head. Juno furrowed his brow, grasping faintly for some reason for the change in demeanor.

“What?” He demanded.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Nureyev returned slowly, finally deciding on a teasing expression. 

Juno firmly suppressed all warm fluttering in his head and chest and gut when he glared, crossing his arms resolutely. 

“I—” he began to protest, broken off by Nureyev’s laugh, as sweet and lovely as ever.

“Why don’t we discuss it later? I’ll get you that glass of water you requested,” he evaded.

Juno didn’t have a moment to protest before Peter had swept him into his arms with a kiss to the head and the gentle grasp of one lifting a baby bird back into a nest. For as ginger as his touch was, his face still bloomed with an earth-shattering smile and his voice still shook with a laugh, as if elated by the prospect of having Juno in his arms at all.

“It’s darker in my bedroom, darling, so if you would rather sleep there until supper, I think you might have the best chance at doing so,” Nureyev offered as he walked, the dragging of his footsteps all but gone. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine,” Juno chuckled. “Someone’s feeling better.”

“It’s like being alive again, darling,” Nureyev mused. 

Juno was sure he looked like a mess. He could feel his neck still barely bleeding, while the collar of his gown still lay undone around his neck. He was almost sure bending over the arm of the couch in such a way had flattened his hair, and there was no way in hell he didn’t look half as dazed as he felt. 

Nonetheless, Nureyev gazed at him like Juno’s hand had been the one to hang the stars. 

It was hard not to feel like some kind of goddess with that kind of gentle reverence cast upon him. Perhaps whatever agent within Nureyev’s teeth had addled his brain, or perhaps an adrenaline crash and blood loss proved to be enough of a cocktail to pull his head up among the stars and planets. Regardless of the reason, Juno was sure there wasn’t a word for whatever feeling swelled within his chest. 

If there was a word, he doubted it would encapsulate half of what he felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow i wrote that without the obvious direction these scenes tend to go in good on me
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill ;)
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm still taking free penumbra commissions, so check that out if you're interested!!


	5. Go Out With a Bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh sisters
> 
> Content warnings for murder, guns/gun violence, betrayal mention, manipulation mention, blood, injury, implied/referenced sexual content, nausea mention

Juno didn’t leave the manor when the storm cleared. 

In fact, he hardly noticed the rain had ceased that morning, for his ears were full of a different kind of sweet music lulling him towards the world of the waking. His head was, as it tended to be in early mornings, atop Nureyev’s chest. 

He still wore a bandage around his neck, albeit one Nureyev insisted on changing incessantly, as if having something to do with his hands would cure Juno of the pinprick scabs that barely marked his skin. Juno couldn’t find it in him to complain about the attention. He hadn’t ever taken himself as the kind of lady who enjoyed being doted on, but every feather-light touch of Nureyev’s fingers on his neck might have been a kiss for their tenderness. 

At some point, the sunshine streaming through the windows in place of the pattering of rain drew both of their eyes, though the cessation of the storm was something that remained unmentioned throughout the day. It wasn’t until that evening that Nureyev brought it up. 

“Darling,” Peter began over their evening meal, his eyes lost somewhere along the gentle flickering lines of the candelabra that lit the dining room table. “I know we’ve left the subject alone for the day, but there is the elephant in the room for our discussion.”

Juno swallowed, almost wishing he could remark about the quality of the food to change the subject. However, for as many lessons as the two had shared, it seemed Juno was far faster at learning piano than Nureyev was at learning how to wield a spatula. 

“Look,” Juno sighed. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow. 

“Do what?”

“I think I’m gonna retire. Say you were the one that got away and it—I dunno, crushed my spirit or something,” Juno snorted. 

“Well, my preemptive apologies, then,” Nureyev chuckled, though the laugh was tinged with as much relief as pleasantry. “I have parchment and ink in a drawer somewhere, should you wish to pen a letter home and announce the crushing of your spirit.”

“I don’t need to pen a letter home. I can just tell you,” Juno tried to say smoothly, though his words bumped along like a carriage on a cobblestone road. 

“My love,” Nureyev all but gasped, though it seemed he couldn’t keep that sharp grin off of his face for long. “I’m honored.”

“I’ve been living here for months, Nureyev. This isn’t exactly news,” Juno tried and failed to sound exasperated, rather than giddy. 

“I don’t often think of myself as an insecure person, Juno, but I must admit, I was worried you would want to leave when the sun shone above us once more,” Peter continued. He reached a hand across the table as he spoke and Juno took it. 

“We’ve been sharing a bed for weeks,” Juno snorted. 

“Plenty of people share beds,” Nureyev huffed. 

“And sharing a bed,” Juno repeated, the emphasis of his words changed. 

A smile bloomed across his lips at the sight of Peter Nureyev blushing. Juno had always been told vampires tended to be bloodless, undead creatures of the night with jaundiced or gray skin and the wan look of consistently starving predators. He had never been told that they, or perhaps, just this one, looked adorable upon flushing. 

For someone who presented himself with the air of a gentleman, from his elaborate waistcoats to his spotless white gloves, Nureyev had a way of entirely undoing Juno’s composure when he showed the first sign of any domesticity, be it a particularly soft smile or the pink flush upon his cheeks and nose. 

“I can’t argue with you there, my love,” Nureyev returned, a carefully practiced smile sliding back over his face. “However, I will introduce another point, if you’ll allow me.”

Juno rolled his eyes. 

“Fine.”

“I think any obliging person in the same scenario as I would be a fool not to do the same,” Nureyev grinned, fangs bared and hand growing just a little tighter around Juno’s.

“Asshole. Drink your squirrel,” Juno snorted. 

For the longest time, the clearing of the storm had been synonymous with an end to all the kind things Juno had accustomed himself to when staying in the manor. It had meant an end to discussions over books and heated debates over whether one Fitzwilliam Darcy was worth an iota of the main character’s time, care, or attention. The ending of the storm meant no more gentle mornings with Nureyev’s fingers in his hair or lips on his forehead. When the sky cleared, Juno expected to be dragged back to his job kicking and screaming. 

In reality, the clearing of the storm meant that he and Peter Nureyev could walk the path through that winding pine forest arm in arm. Juno wore a gown of white, while Nureyev showed off a stately waistcoat of purple, both dressed in some of their best for no one in particular, save for each other. When they found a clearing, they sat for a picnic, and when they had all but emptied the basket, watched fluffy white clouds meandering about the sky above and tried to discern their shape. 

Kinder weather meant days spent down in the village, where Nureyev was not feared so much as he was treated as a local oddity. While the skeleton in his closet remained so, he was still the pleasant, if not slightly eccentric duke who had recently inherited the manor upon the hill from his father. Juno was forced to stifle a laugh every time they were stopped and Nureyev was told he was the spitting image of his old man. 

Even if the sunlight was not particularly kind to Nureyev, who tired quickly on outings and occasionally, was forced to stop a catcaller or corrupt official, if just to rejuvenate himself for some short time, he seemed to enjoy every moment he spent arm in arm with Juno. 

With the weather improving, the shortage of the bottles around the manor became less and less of an issue, though once or twice, Juno managed to convince those teeth back to his neck. The sensation wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. Juno insisted he preferred to keep damage and risk of being caught to a minimum, and it seemed Nureyev could hardly bring himself to disagree. 

As much as he said he was trying to keep those impacted to only those who were willing, Juno knew there was more to it than that.

When Nureyev took him down to the village and introduced him as the lady he was courting, he made a point of showing him off. It was a boastful kind of possessiveness, as if holding Juno upon a pedestal as his greatest accomplishment and sweetest joy. 

Juno could only wonder if those occasions down at the village made Peter feel the same way Juno did with those fangs in his neck. In a way, it felt like belonging. More importantly, it felt like being cherished and desired and worshipped and loved in all the ways Juno had never thought would someday apply to him. 

He could live forever in those moments when Nureyev kissed at the base of his neck, learning not to apologize for every spilled drop of blood. Juno saw some piece of heaven in those moments when Nureyev wrapped a bandage around his neck and pressed a kiss just above the injury, as if placing a bow atop a wrapped present. Even if Juno could take care of it himself, Nureyev always redid the collar of his dress in one more silent gesture of adoration. 

However, the storm’s ceasing did not see the end to every one of Juno’s issues. 

Juno had been elsewhere in the manor when Nureyev invited the traveler in with open arms.

Nureyev was far too preoccupied with taking the traveler’s coat to notice that her standard-issue gun wore the same seal on the pommel as Juno’s, or that tucked away in the fabric of one of her many skirts were a pair of white oak stakes, one of which she kept in her hand as Nureyev introduced his own portrait as that of his grandfather.

“Juno, darling!” Nureyev called from the parlor, his voice as chipper as a tune from his violin. 

“Coming,” Juno returned at half the volume as he made his way over from the kitchen.

He strode into the hall expecting to see one cloaked beggar or another whom Nureyev was merely intending to offer the guest room that once, seemingly a million years ago, had been Juno’s. However, Juno felt his heart drop into his stomach when he made eye contact with the traveler and recognized her. 

“Valencia?” Juno sputtered.

“Juno Steel,” she smiled, her eyes narrowed and her expression like a snake preparing to strike. 

“I see you two already know one another, then,” Nureyev beamed. 

Juno tried to shoot him a panicked glance, but the kind, gentlemanly smile he wore when tipping his hat and offering his arm to various ladies occupied him. He swept the hand of the woman who planned to kill him into his own and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Valencia didn’t smile or laugh in return, merely matching his gaze with a cold smirk that barely hid something far crueller beneath. 

“Well, Miss Valencia,” Nureyev began once more. He pulled a hand away to gesture towards Juno, frozen as he was in the passage to the parlor. “It seems you have already met my Juno, but I would be honored to introduce him as the object of my courtship.”

Juno managed a smile out of sheer courtesy, hoping things might not escalate if he played along for as long as he could manage. He shook Valencia’s hand and pretended it didn’t make his stomach churn to do so. 

“What the hell happened to you, Steel?” She growled, voice low enough that only he would hear. 

“Call it field experience,” he snapped back, feeling a weight lifted when her vice grip on his hand came to an end and he could return to Nureyev’s side. 

Juno took him by the elbow, as much to get his attention as it was to put some part of himself between Peter and Valencia in as subtle a way as possible. 

“Whatever could be the matter, darling?” Nureyev mused. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Mind if I get a word with the suitor?” Juno tried to sound like he was joking, tugging a little more forcefully on Nureyev’s arm. 

“I was hoping he might show me around,” Valencia smiled, eyes dark and shimmering like a sheen of oil. “Why don’t you, Mister Nureyev?”

“Juno, my darling, can’t we have this word later?” Peter hissed. 

“Be careful,” Juno shot back, then turned his attention to the remainder of the room. “You two have fun. I’m gonna go grab something.”

Juno gave Nureyev’s hand a parting squeeze before he spun on his heel, hoping that the moment had not been his only chance for farewell. In that instant, he let his gaze linger and his hand cling to Peter for as long as he could manage. He prayed Nureyev’s quizzical look was merely an act. However, communication was fatally difficult when done with subtle touches and nods and expressions alone. 

Juno didn’t know how to tell Peter that Valencia was the other hunter out for his blood and that she was far less concerned with morals than he was. He didn’t know how an expression might suggest that the strange folding of her skirt by her hip was a secret compartment in which she held a stake or gun or some kind of weapon. 

He could only hope that if he rushed off to get his own firearm first, he might be able to do something to get her to back down. If push came to shove, he might find some way to bribe or threaten her into assisting him in faking Nureyev’s death so that she could return to the agency with her reputation unharmed. However, Juno was almost positive she was too proud to break their streak of rivalry, especially not for something he was personally invested in. 

Instead, he fled up the stairs. He tried to keep his ears on the conversation happening in the parlor below, but caught no more than an offering for tea before the pounding of his heart in his ears grew to the volume of snares before an execution. 

He remembered when he had joked about losing the key to the coat room, which Nureyev had merely brushed off with a vague comment about hiring a locksmith.

It didn’t seem all that funny anymore as his hands scrambled through every drawer in the guest bedroom, fumbling around handles and through jewelry boxes and underneath the dresser until, what felt like a million years too late, he felt a piece of metal fall into his hand. 

Juno squeezed it tight in his sweat-slick palm and scrambled from the room, only able to pray his steps didn’t thunder through the manor in lieu of the storm that had lifted and made way for the gentle paradise that was mere inches from being undone altogether. 

Juno couldn’t remember getting to the door or wrenching it open or even rifling through his pockets for his old weapons. He found the stake first, casting it to the side without care. It clattered to the ground with a bang that seemed like the blast of an earthquake in his panicked state, but no pause in the conversation below indicated that he had been heard. Juno took a deep, shuddering breath and stuffed the gun into his hand.

Silver bullets didn’t like to shoot straight, but that wasn’t usually a problem when one tried to keep their enemies close. Had he not been running full pelt at the stairs, heels clacking and threatening to slip over the wood, he would have let out a mirthless laugh at the irony of it all. The one time he needed his gun, of course it was for a human. 

When he sputtered into the parlor, the hearthfire did not burn behind Nureyev so much as it raged, roared into a frenzy by a breeze from the window. Peter’s eyes were as sharp as ever, though rather than sparkling with that clever look Juno had fallen in love with, they were dark, dangerous, and most importantly, fixated on Valencia’s gun. 

She had the chance to draw before Juno had even entered the room, her eyes flashing with the same metallic coldness as the barrel of her revolver. 

“Whatever the hell you did to Steel—” she started to growl, though Nureyev’s nervous laugh, an imitation of civility, broke her off. 

“I haven’t laid a hand on him, I assure you,” he insisted. 

“I’m not stupid,” Valencia snapped. “You’ve manipulated him or something. They said you could do that.”

“I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about,” Peter continued, trying and failing to keep his voice light. 

Juno tried to catch his eye from across the room, if only to manage some facial apology or farewell if all failed to go in his favor. He felt his hand go tight around his own gun as it began to raise, though he kept his movements as slow as possible, hoping Valencia might not spare a glance for the shadowy corner in which he lurked. 

“Don’t play dumb,” Valencia shot back. “I read the dossier on you. Steel’s not an idiot either, so if you really don’t have him wrapped around your finger like some kind of pet, I’d say he’s playing you.”

Nureyev faltered. 

“What could you possibly mean by such a thing?”

A grin slithered across Valencia’s face. 

“I’ve worked with Steel for years. Looks like this is just his long game. He’s ‘courting’ you or whatever just to get your guard down,” Valencia chuckled darkly. 

“He wouldn’t,” Peter returned, though his surety sounded deflated. 

“He’s a smart lady, Nureyev,” she shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“I—”

“I’ve let you talk a little longer than I’d like. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to collect on that bounty. Don’t take it personally. Just business,” Valencia continued. 

Juno’s heart lurched when a gunshot rang out and Nureyev’s body hit the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH OH SISTERS
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill have to hurt them MORE BWAHAHA
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric (where I am still taking commissions!!) or on twitter @withane22 !!


	6. Don't Suffer Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okie dokie guys sorry!! hope you all like the end :D
> 
> Content warnings for murder, gun violence, injury, blood, reference to mob violence, grief/mourning mention, implied/referenced sexual content

The townspeople saw Juno Steel burying a body that afternoon. 

He could be seen dressed in a new gown, high-collared and black and the closest thing to a mourning outfit he seemed to own at the time. Even in his finery, he looked adept with a shovel until his tools became tangled in a few too many roots and he retired to the manor to change into trousers, this time wielding a large knife to assist with what his shovel could not cut through. 

The gown made an appearance later that evening, when a burnt orange sky became the muse of a letter he agonized over until that burnt orange began to wheeze away into an ashen purple of early night.

He spent the afternoon and evening with a portable writing desk on his lap and the hill and forest and town laid out before him from his seat upon the manor’s balcony. It took him far too many minutes to write the date and address on his letter, and far too many hours to finish the single sheet of paper that his words occupied. 

While he didn’t complete the final draft for several days, he managed a paragraph or two when his eyes weren’t trained on that dying sunset. 

“I can’t do this anymore. I’d write professionally or whatever, but I just spent months locked in some creepy old house with a vampire, trying not to get eaten the entire time. I watched him kill my coworker and nearly kill me. I burned Nureyev and buried Valencia, and I don’t want to have to do something like that ever again. You can quit sending me my pension or whatever you even do. I won’t be going back to collect anything. I’m gonna stay in the countryside. I think it’ll be good for me to get away from everything for awhile.”

Juno sighed and buried his head in his hands, not caring if his pen rolled with the push of the wind.

“Juno,” someone called from the door to the balcony, a mug of tea in one hand and a consoling smile on his face. “You’ve been out there for far too long, my love.”

“You should be in bed,” Juno sighed, his expression contorted with worry when Nureyev’s hand gripped a little too tightly upon the railing.

“As should you, darling,” Peter returned. “You’ve had the shock of your life. I know I don’t bleed much, but you looked positively ill when—“

Juno swallowed. 

“I don’t want to think about that too much.” 

“My apologies, love,” Nureyev said, soft enough that Juno barely heard it over the roaring of his thoughts. 

Two gunshots had rung out in the mansion. First, one from Valencia’s gun, the unsteady silver bullet sinking its teeth just above Nureyev’s hip. Second, Juno fired wildly in her direction. 

He never checked to see if his bullet shot true until long after Valencia was dead. Rather, he focused his panicked, fluttering attention on Nureyev. Even deceased, his chest heaved in pain from a wound designed to burn and fester. Juno barely remembered tearing the shirt aside, though he knew he must have done away with it at some point. Otherwise, the angry red wound creeping across a sweat-slick chest would not have seared itself into his memory.

“You’re okay,” Juno remembered repeating like some kind of prayer, more to convince himself than Nureyev. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“My love,” Nureyev sputtered out, eyes darting around Juno’s face frantically, as if he were trying to memorize it, knowing he could not take such a thing with him into whatever world came next. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have believed her for a moment, my darling, my dearest, I didn’t realize—“

Juno might have shushed him at that point, or his words might have just fallen away. His lungs continued gasping for air as if trying to take in as much of the world as he could before he parted from it. Juno hadn’t even realized his fingers had gone numb in Nureyev’s grasp until he began scrambling for bandages, which were all but used up from Peter’s incessant doting over the two tiny scars in Juno’s neck.

“What do I say to you, dear?” Nureyev had asked as Juno laid him across their bed. 

“What do you mean?”

“I’d like to leave you kind words to remember me by,” Peter continued simply, as if his words hadn’t just shattered Juno’s heart like a plate cast against the ground in fury.

“Honey,” Juno protested. “You don’t need to say anything if it’s gonna hurt.”

“Everything hurts, love,” Nureyev winced through a broken smile. “The least I can do is comfort you through the duration.”

Before his thoughts could spiral into the chopped memories of Nureyev passing out or his frantic search for a sign of life in someone whose heart had ceased beating forty years ago, Juno felt a light hand rest upon his shoulder. 

“Juno, my dearest,” Peter said softly.

Juno raised his head from the single paragraph he had eked out and sighed. 

“I’m here,” Juno nodded, and swallowed. “I’m really glad you’re feeling better.” 

Nureyev patted his shoulder. 

“You’re clearly not feeling yourself, dear,” he smiled. “I’m going to retrieve a chair so I might be better company for the time being. Even if you’re not in a condition to talk, I’d rather you not suffer alone.”

“You shouldn’t—“ Juno started to protest, fading away when Nureyev pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

“I heal quickly, my love,” Peter reassured, even if he walked back inside with a limp haunting his left leg. 

When he returned, he replaced the pen in Juno’s hand with a cup of tea, which was as warm and grounding as the squeeze Juno felt on his unoccupied fingers. 

He shut his eyes, merely breathing in the smell of mint and the feeling of Peter Nureyev, the man he had meant to kill and killed for instead, trying to comfort him through that small and simple touch. 

“How are you feeling?” Nureyev prompted, words so soft they might have been sharing the moment inches apart on some sleepy, pleasant morning. 

“Shaken,” Juno sighed. 

“I understand, my dearest,” Nureyev returned sympathetically. “It’s not every day something like this happens.”

Juno didn’t particularly remember finishing his cup of tea, but he did remember those cautious, gloved hands taking it away, then a kiss on his forehead in mourning of their short parting. Nureyev wasn’t gone for more than a minute or two, but it seemed there were a thousand things he would rather do than leave Juno to put away a teacup. 

When he returned, he pressed their chairs closer together so they might hold hands more easily. Juno squeezed Nureyev’s glove like a lifeline, and after a few too many moments of staring blindly into the sunset, Peter beckoned him to his feet for an embrace. 

Juno sank into the hug with a heavy sigh, though the weight upon his shoulders began to lessen when Nureyev pressed another kiss upon his forehead. Peter never had any qualms about showing affection in public, and seemed to have less when in direct proximity to his own home. He held Juno as if their parting would mean death, and only ever leaned far enough away to press their lips together. 

“You saved my life today, Juno,” Nureyev breathed, his smile as gentle as it was tentative.

Juno nodded. 

“I don’t regret it,” he said after a moment, though he knew it would be ages before he truly believed it. “She was gonna kill you, and she was gonna kill other people like you, and I just couldn’t let that happen.”

Juno heard himself sniff, but hadn’t realized his own tears until Nureyev’s thumb ran over his cheekbone.

“I thought I was gonna lose you,” Juno choked out.

“I’m here now, darling,” Nureyev smiled.

“You weren’t for a moment,” Juno confessed. “I couldn’t figure out how to find something that wasn’t a pulse until I checked your breathing and for a moment there I thought I was too late.”

Nureyev pulled him into a rib-cracking hug.

“I love you,” he assured.

“I love you too,” Juno returned, feeling that of all things he had said that day, that was the one expression he felt the most sure about. 

“You don’t need to finish that letter today, love,” Peter continued kindly. “I know you’ve spent quite some time on it, and I would rather you not spend the entire day toiling over one paragraph or another. You deserve to take the evening to recover, dear.”

“Will you help me with it?” Juno started. “You’ve always been good with words.”

Nureyev beamed. 

“Of course I will, darling. That letter means as much to me as it does to you. Now, you’re officially not going to murder me,” Nureyev grinned. 

Juno rolled his eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” he huffed. 

“Your idiot,” Nureyev amended. 

“My idiot,” Juno confirmed with a weak laugh.

“Why don’t we get you inside?” Nureyev proposed. “It’s only a matter of time until it becomes cold out here, and you’re already shaking like a leaf.”

Juno hadn’t noticed his own hands twitching until Nureyev took both of them in his own and squeezed, as if that might do away with the chill that had settled within his veins. Even if it did nothing to help his trembling, the gesture made him feel better, at least to some small extent. 

“I think that sounds nice,” Juno confirmed.

Nureyev made to sweep Juno into his arms like a bride upon a wedding day, but just bending over made him wince. Instead, Juno returned the favor, even if his arms still barely shook. Peter returned a silent nod of thanks, then went one step farther when he wrapped his arms around Juno’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. 

“Hey,” Juno heard himself smile when Nureuev fixed him with an adoring beam.

“Hello, Juno,” he chuckled in return. 

Juno didn’t feel he had any choice but to kiss him again, hoping the action might speak for all he had felt that day, every wave of terror and relief and the swelling, terrifying warmth in his chest he now knew to be love when his words failed him. He doubted it would compensate for a novel’s worth of things left unsaid, though Nureyev hugged him a little closer, seeming to get the idea.

When his arms began to shake in protest, Juno carried Peter to their bed and laid him down, cautious of pressure and pillow-placement and arranging him correctly. Nureyev merely stretched out like a cat. He then seized Juno by the arm and brought him tumbling into bed at his side when it seemed he could bear to be parted from him no longer.

“Do you think they’ll notice a change in writing if it’s in my hand?” Nureyev asked. 

“You don’t have to—” Juno started to sigh. 

“I would like to,” Peter smiled, reaching over with his free hand to interlock their fingers. “Let’s find an excuse for the remainder of this to be dictated, shall we?”

“My hand cramped and I paid the only kid in the village who could write to do it,” Juno replied off the top of his head, parting their hands just long enough to prop Nureyev into a sitting position and passing the writing desk into his lap. 

“Perfect,” Nureyev smiled, beginning to write. “The rest of this letter is dictated. I received a minor injury in my hand.”

“Keep the prose to a minimum, Shakespeare,” Juno snorted. 

Nureyev rolled his eyes. 

“Why don’t you offer me some words of wisdom, then?” He huffed. “Perhaps some details of this horrible monster’s death.”

“You saw Valencia die,” Juno joked. 

“I was talking about myself, dear,” Nureyev chuckled. “What would you say to something truly terrible? Perhaps, that I’m some kind of hulking undead monster and they should send you twice the payment for having rid of me.”

Juno snorted. 

“I’d feel bad.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Nureyev laughed. 

“Whatever,” Juno shrugged. 

“Just give me slander and I’ll write it, darling,” Peter smiled, readying his pen.

“How about this?” Juno started. “I was so disturbed by how hideous this monster was that I’m requesting at least double the bounty already given. He nearly tore my throat out twice and I don’t think I’ll ever recover.”

Nureyev scoffed. 

“You and I both know you enjoyed it,” he huffed. 

“Who told you that?” Juno snorted. 

Nureyev went unexpectedly red. 

“It—” he cleared his throat. “It tastes better if you’re enjoying it.”

“Nureyev,” Juno groaned, face falling into his free hand. “This is so weird.”

“You’ve been courting a vampire for months, and that’s what’s odd to you? Not that I drink blood or occasionally drink yours, but that—”

“If you finish that sentence, this next paragraph is gonna be the bane of your existence,” Juno warned, face red-iron hot. He heard Nureyev chuckle anyway.

“Fine, I’ll just amend some of the worse things you’ve put down about this horrid monster and carry on then,” Nureyev smiled, pretending to write as he continued. “He had fangs of such a size that I found I couldn’t control myself. He was, in fact, disturbingly handsome to such an extent that I openly coerced him into using me as a food source just for the sake of skin-on-skin contact with such a ravishing individual.”

“No!” Juno choked out, reaching for the paper. “Give me that.”

“It’s too late, Juno. I’ve already transcribed your hand cramp,” Nureyev smirked. “And none of what I just said, for that matter. All I’ve written is that apparently, this monster had manipulative powers that extended to your—”

Juno craned his neck over the page before Nureyev could finish his sentence. 

“Oh thank God, that was a joke,” Juno sighed. 

“Of course it was, darling,” Peter laughed, using their closeness as an excuse to throw an arm around Juno and pull him into a kind of half-hug, in part to apologize and in part to celebrate that the two of them were still together, uninjured, and in one piece each.

For all the townspeople knew, a certain visitor had tragically passed while in the company of that friendly duke upon the hill. It had shaken his companion enough that he retired from the former job that saw him travelling often. As such, the two had decided to spend the remainder of their days making their profits off of the duke’s investments, particularly those that were twice as old as he looked. 

After months together in that once lonely manor upon the hill turned to years, the mysterious duke and the mysterious lady who was always on his arm married. They broke the tradition of marrying in a church for reasons nobody could see, favoring a courthouse wedding that was nonetheless splendid. 

The two remained a fixture in the town for longer than anyone could remember. If the weather was kind, one could almost be certain to see the strange couple from the even stranger mansion upon the hill, always arm and arm. Those who had spoken with them reported that the duke was friendly and polite, while his wife had a tongue sharp enough to make up for it. 

As superstitious as the townspeople were, they found they didn’t particularly mind the predilections of the gentleman. He did as little harm as he could manage and proved to be nothing but pleasant when he made his way into the village.

Few eyes were batted when he disappeared for nearly a week, only returning down to the village in a near panic in search of any type of medical supplies he could get his hands on, but not the services of a doctor. 

His next trip to the village was accompanied by his wife, who bloomed brighter than ever and wore a bandage high around his neck. Even if his wife’s health was asked after for some time, his recovery was quick, and whatever ailment had claimed him for the week left him looking younger and healthier than ever. 

Even as decades passed and the village itself changed, the couple on the hill made no alterations to their routines, save for updating their outfits when corsets began to drift out of style. 

In some other village, an unaging couple who spent the majority of their time, if not making a point of traveling the continent to their hearts’ content, holed away in a creepy old manor house upon the hill, might be the subject of infamy. Between the donations to the local clergy and their general demeanor when visiting the marketplace itself, however, it seemed hardly anyone, nor their grandparents, all of whom had known the couple to look no different in their day, had a complaint. 

It was hard to go after a couple with pitchforks and torches when they were unchanging, not just in face, but in the fact that they always looked distinctly happy with one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOHOO!!!! we've known i can't do sad endings come on guys
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!!
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm still taking free penumbra commissions if you're interested!!

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo!! This one's gonna be lit you guys just you wait
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm still taking (free!) commissions so make sure to check those out!!


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